This site contains ideas and solutions for the world to use and not own.

A problem that was solved ages ago, how to mount and remove a roof rack with a click or the turn of a knob, has become unsolved.

Today’s solution is to have special nuts (threaded holes) in the car’s roof and screws to match.
This means every car model has its own setup and it is quite a lot of job, possibly with a special tool, to mount the roof rack.

I suggest, in lieu of the classic drop list, to keep the threaded holes but to have an adapter to mount.
Normally the adapter should be taken off as soon as possible but if it is not, it is stream lined and creates as little drag as possible.

On this adapter the roof rack can be mounted with ease, and not screws.

This way the car can be as stream lined as possible. Then, when need arises and with a little work it can be prepared for roof racks. Finally the roof racks can be mounted and removed quickly and with ease.

I do not always rise at the same time as my spouse who is sleeping next to me.

I have the idea of an alarm clock that makes you wake but not your spouse.

When using a centre punch in a wood like fir it is very common it slides of the brown line into the lighter brown part. The brown line is winter? wood and harder.

I want a centre punch that doesn’t do this but instead makes the hole exactly where I put it; want it.

One solution can be to have a tube, think drinking straw, but in metal, but sharpened in the business end. Pressing it against wood would make a round mark. Since it is a couple of millimeters in diameter there is a good chance it gets a grip so it doesn’t skid off any brown line. Marking with a centre punch is often done for drilling so marking a 4mm ring does not create any damage if one intends to drill with a +4mm drill; or an even wider mark if a screw head will cover.

Inside this tube is a sharpened rod. So when the tube has a good grip, just press the rod down, and now you have a centred mark.

If it is hard to centre the tube one could start with letting the rod protrude and put where wanted; but without the pressure that will make it skid; and then lower the tube so it grips, and finally press the rod.
Or one could have a template or jig, say a see-through piece of plastic with a hole exactly fitting the tube. Adjust the jig/template by eye, it should be easy with these small distances, insert the tube and press down the rod.
If the precision is not enough, have a see through inset with a cross hair. Adjust the jig/template with the exact crosshaired inset in place. Remove the inset. Place the tube. Press the rod.

I have seen semi automatic spring loaded centre punches but they all lack the sharpened tube.

Another solution, that won’t mark around the single mark we want is to have a see through plastic template with a, say 10mm hole in it. In this hole is placed an inset with a crosshair to align exactly. Then the inset is removed and the punch is inserted and pressed. This solution is very similar to the one above but relies on the template staying in place instead of the sharpened tube doing it.

For taking notes, paper and pen beats any computer. But taking backups of paper notes is a task. Not a difficult task or a task that takes long time but still a task taking long enough to never be done.

So let’s give some incitament.

First let the cellular take care of backing up. Everyone nowadays, at least anyone that should be interested in this idea, has a cellular with a camera good enough for taking a recognisable photo of a sheet of paper.

Ordinary photo copier paper is quite good for writing so let’s use that. It is cheap and the copying machine is already stuffed with it.

Print a paper with a QR code in two corners. Let this QR code have some info in it that is identifiable by an app (or system). Say it contains a consecutive Number for Your id. Print 30 of them the first of the month and stick in your binder. If you are on a note taking spree, print some more. The app just makes up new, recognisable, QR codes. The QR codes also makes it easier for the app to recognise the corners of the paper sheet so you don’t have to be so thorough when photographing the paper.

Take a photograph of it with you cellular and the app and wham bam it gets backuped. The time line is known. If you go back and edit an older paper, take a photo and it is backup’ed in complement to the older backup.

Put in some OCR and maybe maybe your handwriting can be recognised.

Put in some simple boxes to tick the date or some icons to mark for different meanings. “Backup secretly, I will destroy this original paper.”, “Send as email attachment to myself”, “Send as email link to Ms Moneypenny.”, “Store in personal stack”, “Store in office stack.”

While we’re at it. Print your name and number on every sheet. Print some light grey markings so you can draw right angles. Print heavier black lines on the backside. These will shine through when writing but not when photo copying or backing up with the cellular camera.

With my electric cargo bike I can carry only so much cargo. I have an idea about an electric trailer that doesn’t push or help with the forward movement in any way but stay totally neutral. This way there is less chance of breaking any bicycling laws. Let it also have a maximum speed of 25 km/h to surely and totally stay inside the frames of law.

In a very simple solution it can be connected like any other bicycle trailer but it is sensitive to push and pull forces on the hitch. It can have a short play and fast reaction or long play an slower reaction. With the latter a normal PDI regulator might work. Or even a P regulator, albeit with a logaritmic curve. When the tow bar gets pulled, longer, the motor accelerates. When the tow bar gets pushed, compressed, the motor breaks.

It is possible it does not work, that it will play the forces in such a way it will try to throw the bicycle of balance; but why should it? An unpowered bicycle trailer will try to tilt the bicycle as soon as a wheel hits a pothole or one has to break downhill; and they seem to be doing alright.

Small children are given soap bubble bottles. Small children involuntarily empties them quite quickly.

The idea is a soap bubble bottle that doesn’t spill its contents when lying flat or turned over.

Say you are selling posters.

The first idea is to make them slightly unique by limiting every image to X instances. This is not unusual in printed art.

The next idea is to let the buyer, at a higher price, limit the instance to 1. Then the customer will have a truly unique poster.

Now lots of posters are pebbles or leaves. The third idea is to have lots of such images but only present a fix number, say 10, to choose from. Every customer can choose between a numbered or a unique image. If a unique is chosen, remove it from the store and present a new one for next customers.

My kitchen mixer has 3 buttons, 2 dials and a simple display. It can do some stuff, like cook for a certain number of minutes or beat at a certain speed. Simply put, it can do one thing and then has to be set to do another thing.

Why is it not programmable? Why can’t I set it to kneed and heat the dough 4 hours before I rise in the morning?

To be honest, I would not want it to have a user interface to solve all the situations I would come up with since I have seen how bad it is when hardware people try to solve a programming problem. Just look at your car, how much did you pay for the navigator that is both clunky and out of date compared to the google maps you have on your phone? Or think of the kids’ toy that started as a wifi connected state-of-the-art thing to play with but ended as a hacker’s dream with an attached camera.

So instead let all the motors and servos in the machine have a well known (bluetooth) interface. Then connect your phone or have a cheap android phone attached to the machine with for instance magnets. Cheap. Easy replacable. Updatable.

Now your Kenwood mixer can kneed and let the dough rise and the Siemens oven can be started in time for your Electrolux coffee brewer aroma accelerated wake up. These three slow turning kitchen appliance giants don’t have to learn how to cooperate but you can teach their stuff to do.

Your phone is typically set to lock its screen after a minute or so of not touching it.
This is really a problem when trying to follow a recipe.

Why not write an app that complements the Flight mode, Movie mode, Meeting mode and Whatnot modes there are, with a Recipe mode.

This Recipe mode, in its simplest solution would just turn of locking and turning off the screen. In a more advanced solution it would lock the screen but let the web page with the recipe still be on and scrollable.